reserve protect and defend the constitution of the united states the constitution of the united states so help you god so help me god for graduation with mr berg. and with those words president obama begins his second term as commander in chief so what can we expect during the next four years and how does he live up to his pledges in the first term. hello welcome to our special coverage of the second inauguration of president barack obama today will be taking a look back at what has defined president obama's first term as well as what lies ahead from civil rights to foreign policy will dig deep into the real topics and

issues that presses the u.s. today to start off i want to bring in our panel our to correspondent meghan lopez hoser breaking the sat here on r t abby martin and our special guest today martin luther king the third great to have you all here so mr kagan the first question of course i mean how does it feel to see the first african-american president be inaugurated into his second term especially on a federal holiday dedicated to honoring your father well let me start by basically saying this is a year of significant anniversaries the hundred fiftieth anniversary of the process of approximation of population the forty fifth anniversary of the memphis sanitation strike where my father unfortunate was the forty fifth anniversary of the poor people's campaign very very significant the fiftieth anniversary of the letter of the birmingham jail that my dad wrote and the fiftieth anniversary of the

march on washington where he delivered his i have a dream speech so for the president to be inaugurated in this monumental year just an on the king holiday is really quite phenomenal but the end. beyond that i should say the fact that he used one of the bibles that was used was dad's bible and his traveling bible so naturally we are is a euphoric kind of feel but the challenge and i hope people certainly many americans were inspired today is the president talked about his vision but i hope that congress. the understanding that congress must work with the president for that vision to come to fruition. and you know president obama he's known for kind of his his passionate speech as rallying up the people his message of unity he has famously said you know there's not a red there's not red states there's not blue states there's not the united states

kind of this message of unity but here we are as he is inaugurated into a second term congress is very divided we see the sharp differences between the red states and the blue states. so what do you think about that did the president deliver on this uniting the people or is this something that just was out of his hands no i think that the american people chose to reelect him so that he can continue to forge the vision that he has charted for the country the first term he was able to get health care passed which now we've got to figure out how to pay for but at least now people have health care he also was able to get. fairness for people all people so that now across america many states are beginning to past states are beginning to pass legislation as it relates to gay marriage their number of things that the president still has to do immigration policy taking

a bold stand on gun control and i think that's where i think the president is not just trying to lead his own vision this is what i believe the majority of the american people want i want to turn now mr king to something that your father was dedicated to. dressing this this issue of poverty in the u.s. one to take a look at these numbers compares nine hundred sixty eight to present day nine hundred sixty eight of of course the year that your father was assassinated at that time there was twenty five point four million poor americans eleven million poor children flash forward to today there is forty six point two million poor americans sixteen point one million poor children and this is out of time that our g.d.p. has tripled of course a disproportionate amount in this statistic are a minority is so do you think that there's been enough to to address this problem decades later. in fact people would ask you my father's dream was realized and i

would say there's no question that has not been aspects of the dream have been realized he wanted to eradicate poverty racism and militarism from arse militarism i should say on balance we've made great strides in race we still got a ways to go but we've made great strides but in poverty we've almost made no progress so that's one of the things i think creating a climate of entrepreneurship creating the right kind of training finding a way to retain our young people in our school system so they don't drop out they get the best primary and secondary education ultimately so that they can go into the high tech jobs and earn their rightful place in society so that is a huge area that we've got to work on as a nation. sorry as you said yourself you know militarism was a huge pillar for martin luther king to really advocate against and i think that's a lot very under reported in our educational system when we're learning about dr martin luther can we learn a lot about the civil liberties aspect we don't really hear about his opposition to

the vietnam war and really how strongly he opposed this i'm looking at obama's presidency how do you feel about just kind of the continuation of this military aggression worldwide i think the president inherited a number of wars that were going on and we're deescalating troops bringing troops home. are we doing enough maybe not are we curtailing our spending in military i don't see that happening i think that also the public has to be engaged i don't think the public has been engaged enough to say this is what we want to see because militarism is costing us a substantial amount of our budget and we certainly want to create a climate for a strong nation a strong be able to protect our borders but we certainly feel we spent we spent far too much. militarism. creating weapons systems that we may i mean if we use them

it's over so we can really makes no sense that the destruction sort of social. and freedom conversation back home i know that yesterday you were at the m.l.k. jr memorial your father's memorial service presenting the reef with a number of other people reverend jackson jamie foxx question. kind of support of this cause and in the speeches expressions of the one delivered by reverend jackson i heard him talking about not necessarily the fide but tween the race is so much right now is the divide between poverty and the rich and the poor my question to you is you know we've heard a lot of people saying that education or gay rights are the new civil liberties movement of our day in your opinion is there one that really kind of stands up to the standards of the civil regional civil liberties and what i still think the issue centers around economic empowerment if we create the climate for true

economic empowerment of communities being communities can lift themselves up when you look at chicago that had five hundred six murders. sure you that most of those homicides and over one hundred seventy of them were young children but i guarantee you that if people were engaged in something creative young people involved in something positive had a decent job those numbers would have been lower if not and i really believe ideally we have the ability to wipe that out you know we live in a nation to promote violent six out of ten cartoons about seven out of ten video games of blowing up something and shooting something six out of ten movies. that we watch at home and six out of ten movies we go to the theater and watch or so to we change the culture we live in a culture of violence that does not allow us to really achieve our own pursuit of liberty justice and happiness. i think we've got to change that so that we create

a culture of nonviolence and when we change that paradigm then i think that the society is better for all people my dad talked about. in sixty eight creating a living wage and here we are in two thousand and thirteen forty five years later and we're still debating the minimum minimum wage getting the minimum wage up there's some communities that have created a living wage we've got to do a better job across the board. civil liberties of course something that your father fought for and many today are saying that these liberties are being threatened are being eroded one example national defense authorization act a very controversial piece of legislation this allows the government to detain americans and definitely political activist dr cornel west came out recently saying that martin luther king jr could have been called a terrorist under this law and could have been detained oh what are your thoughts about this and. about you know i think. we warn.

many that. essentially as we were attempting to curtail and get to the terrorist that. we were going we were losing our liberties so the fact of the matter is yes we have lost some things i mean just i mean all of us go to the airports you have to take more and more. this friday but but but the reality is. there's a much bigger concern and that is can we in fact protect our citizenry without. diminishing near rights i think we can and you know i think one of the things we have to learn is you will never be able to address terrorism by creating the climate to terrorize others you have to treat people with dignity and respect and like they really are brothers and sisters and human beings when you treat people that way most of the terrorism will dissipate now that's not fanaticism that's

a different discussion not quite sure how we address that but i think we can address terrorism and i think american people have to say we want to have our rights. instituted one of the things just a quick point quick final point. we all have been going through these machines where we hold our hands up t.s.a. is removing all those machines and i knew something was wrong when they would allow much out of go through to go through it but. it's going to hurt right there that might be heard i mean. just interesting mr king really a pleasure to have you here today on this historic day that was our to correspondent megan lopez abby martin host of breaking the sat. back in just a moment and a very special thanks to our special guest today martin luther king the third. though were used to seeing barack obama with the presidential seal it wasn't always this way how did you get to be the most powerful man in the world let's refresh

your memory. is the. president. five. films where. this industry now faces another urgency the american recovery and reinvestment act that i will sign today is the most sweeping economic recovery package in our history members of the senate joining their colleagues in the house of representatives to pass a landmark health insurance reform as commander in chief i have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional thirty thousand u.s. troops to afghanistan at home mike mullen says nearly half of the thirty thousand troops ordered to play by president obama are already in theater i have done that a fixing our broken immigration system. is not only

a political issue not just an economic issue but a moral imperative as well paid champion up as a big republican night as major networks project they're taking control of the house and this midterm election of two thousand and ten that nine point eight percent unemployment rate is the highest since april of this year valor and sacrifice are no more limited by sexual orientation than they are by race or by gender or by religion or by creed this morning i am proud. to sign a law that will bring an end to don't ask don't tell. egypt is probably changing forever and it may not stop there what appears to be a revolution is underway. so at my direction america led enough but we have our allies at the united nations security council to pass historic resolution that authorized a no fly zone to stop the regime's attacks from the air and further authorized all

necessary measures to protect libyan people. today we can definitively say that the gadhafi regime has come to an end i can report to the american people and to the world that the united states has conducted an operation that killed osama bin laden. there's this movement occupy wall street which has spread from wall street to other cities they clearly don't think that you or republicans have done enough that you're part of the problem today i can report that as promised the rest of our troops in iraq will come home by the end of the year kill list kill kill last kill list you're basing this on reports in the news that have never been confirmed by me effective immediately the department of homeland security is taking steps to lift the shadow of deportation from these young people the supreme court has upheld the individual

mandate for me personally. it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that i think same sex couples should be able to get married the unemployment rate fell below eight percent in september for the first time since two thousand and nine it is welcome news for president obama following what's been perceived as a weak performance during the debate against mitt romney to feel more carefully. the field work with the gold doors with the list of goals with this would start. with a little relieve the selection of the whole foods local store the robot of the world where they stood so much as the greatest bunch of others just let go of what was. it was supposed to be the number one campaign issue president obama began his term during an economic crisis four years later the economy still hasn't fully recovered

from the recession or more going to bring our panel back in here so make it looks like the next big hurdle is the debt ceiling absolutely and we thought that there was going to be quite a pushback from g.o.p. republican lawmakers in both the house and the senate they actually just met in williamsburg virginia over the weekend for a three day retreat kind of to get back on the same page to see what they really will want to focus on in this next year and that looks like everything that we're hearing is that they're actually going to pass a debt limit now let me just give you a little bit of a refresher on the debt ceilings the debt ceiling has actually been raised eleven times since two thousand and one it usually is raised without very much has it taken a problem but we have seen a lot more pushback with the debt ceiling in recent years ever since president obama took office now this. package that the g.o.p. is promising will raise the federal debt limit for just a temporary period for just about three months but there's

a stipulation in the simulation is that they want the senate to come upon a budget agreement and a budget agreement hasn't actually been agreed upon for four years so they want the senate and the house to come together to each propose a budget for the upcoming year and then to come up with a compromise with the final proposal now obviously democrats are really pushing back on this issue saying that first of all that three month extension of the debt ceiling is certainly not enough i mean we've already. seen so much happened in this past year really the debt ceiling was supposed to be we were supposed to go beyond the debt ceiling back in december but timothy geithner and acted these extraordinary measures to kind of push it as far as it could really pinching pennies from the u.s. economy and we're really seeing now is that everyone is projecting that we are going to run out of money money you know the term that we use for that money that we don't have right now to kind of to we can only push it until the end of february

early march so obviously something really needs to happen right now in terms of the debt ceiling and mind you i just need to remind you one more point and that is really that there the debt ceiling and the raising the debt ceiling is already for money that they've already planned on spending in the first place so the debt ceiling and raising it isn't for future budgets or perfume legislations for things that they've already agreed upon so it's just really saying yes to the things that we want. you know when it comes to the economy i guess when it comes to pretty much everything in congress doesn't seem like they can agree on much. this congress has become a tourist for it's kind of a lack of action not only on the budget in the debt ceiling but for a lot of other important pieces of legislation they've been called the do nothing congress of course there was that funny about kind of sad poll about public policy a poll that found their approval rating is worse than cockroaches and root canals and you know i actually spoke to congresswoman eleanor holmes norton and

a couple months ago when all this was kind of going on. kind of like. the crunch time of the campaign sees that and of course she's been through. several terms or she's worked there were a lot of congresses and she says that this one is by far the worst here's what she had to say. i said on the house floor show me one. bill for which this congress will be remembered. no one no one followed me to give me an example so it's not only a do nothing congress it's a congress that is has been i think the worst congress since the civil war whereas con in congress she says since the civil war so they can work together how has that affected their ability to get anything done in the first term and will that change in the second term when we have this same composition well you know when i hear things about the economy and the debt ceiling and sequestration i

just have to look at the bigger picture here and really see goldman sachs wells fargo j.p. morgan chase all of these gigantic banks that essentially put obama into office they paid for his campaign essentially you know they hold more than eight point five trillion dollars in assets that's up forty three percent from five years ago and you're looking at just the cult like our big bailouts and not investigating any of the bonuses that they were taking i mean we just put jack lew in as treasury secretary he he was he was instrumental in destabilizing acted during the clinton ministration that really gave big banks the too big to fail platform i mean this is just outrageous i mean we're looking at the economy you can just get these tax loopholes from these giant banks that do not pay any taxes it would solve the economy problem so it's just kind of the elephant in the room that i just have to keep pointing fingers that. where are going to i don't

have magonet you have kind of a look at the change the change up in the administration and there's a lot of them let's go ahead and go over to the plasma and look at some of them first up one of the hallmarks of every president's second term is a change in the lineup not only does it bring new mines and new ideas to the forefront of the administration but it also gives a much needed our in our relax and rest and relax for those who have already served their. for years with president obama in the first term perhaps no one needs are and are more than. secretary of state hillary clinton in her first four years as a top u.s. diplomat she's flown over nine hundred sixty thousand miles to one hundred twelve countries now it looks like senator john kerry will replace her as the current chair of the senate foreign relations committee he has extensive foreign policy experience his confirmation is seen as a practical shoo in next up

a change that could determine a lot about this country's economic future treasury secretary timothy geitner is stepping down this comes amid the debt ceiling seaquest ration in appropriation debates as well as calls for reform of the tax system the president nominated current white house chief of staff jack lew successor who is known as a numbers guy a budget hawk and a tough bargain are among other things now secretary of defense leon panetta is set to be replaced by former senator chuck hagel he earned two purple hearts for his service in the vietnam war tables nomination was seen by many republicans as a slap in the face because he went on to oppose the iraq war in later years also sharply criticized earlier this month for the comments that he made about israel and openly gay bassett or though it looks like he will be confirmed now a juicy sex scandal cut short david petraeus this time as cia director set to

replace him is john brennan a cia guy one of the key architects of president obama's secret drone program and a known supporter of bush era quote interrogation tactics like waterboarding and enhanced interrogations the confirmation hearing for john brennan could bring up a key opportunity to publicly discuss these controversial topics but we'll have to wait and see now there are also a lot of question marks in this cabinet including in the commerce department secretary of. john bryson stepped down last june his replacement has yet to be named secretary of labor hill of hilda solis announced she was leaving about two weeks ago right now we don't know who will fill her shoes but this position remains very important as the department helps implement job training programs and other aspects of job legislation the job of white house chief of staff is to make sure that the president's agenda is that the top of everyone else's list too now that jack lew is headed to the treasury his position is that someone who could play

a huge role in president obama's push for alternative energy is the e.p.a. director lisa jackson announced that she was stepping down her successor is also open to speculation now the office of management and budget allocates the country's finances but we haven't had a senate confirmed director since jack lew became the white house chief of staff who's filling positions here we who knows when the next another nominee will actually face the senate hasn't happened in quite some time we also learned that the secretary of interior ken salazar will leave in march leaving president obama with yet another hole to fill in his administration so obviously was a bunch of people changing leaving and you know a lot of people say that this is actually a good thing because it brings in these new ideas but you have to see who will see a. change in policies and the way that things have been going we are going to turn it now to social issues because if there is one thing that we can take away from

the last election it may be that the demographics in the u.s. have changed and that has changed the political landscape and we're going to bring in our panel now to weigh in on the range of social issues that rocked the campaign and are relevant today. one of the big ones is that gay marriage president obama of course is the first one to come out in support of it actually you know what he mentioned it even in his inauguration speech today let's take a listen to what. say. our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law. if we are truly. then surely the lord we could look to one another. as well. all right so the significance significance of this and still some people are you know people are thrilled others are saying what took so long well i mean fifty years ago if the president said i would like black and white people have the same rights that's just

my personal opinion but i look the states decide see this isn't going far enough for me i would like a federal law that just says legalize gay marriage all across the board i think it's great of course once again it's a symbolic gesture that really sets the precedent for future generations and really shows that hey this is something that we should really be paid attention to but then again i mean dick cheney eight years ago came out on the campaign trail for bush saying that he supported same sex marriage there was so good for dick cheney was eight years ago and we know that it is becoming a more popular issue according to a wall street journal n.b.c. poll fifty one percent of americans actually support gay marriage now that's the most it's ever been since the two thousand and four we're also seeing an increased number of mayor signing on saying that they want to try to pass legislation and obviously when you have the support of the president it's hard to say no in terms of this type of social issue when there's just so many people the culture of this country has changed so much that we're really expecting it more we've seen numerous

states pass laws by popular vote and it's really becoming the issue of the day you know we have the president obama's inauguration is today but it's still the same president we still kind of have the same makeup in congress so and that way a lot of people are saying we haven't seen a lot of change in terms of the politics but i think some of the big changes are in these ballots course these states big victories for gay marriage also been. victories for marijuana two states voted to legalize it for recreational use so this is really i mean abbi what do you think how does this kind of shift. i think. there's a point you know this administration has been in really fulfilling the promises that he set forth in two thousand and eight that's really amazing and it's really giving me hope more than anything else to see in these states really take initiative take it upon themselves legalizing gay marriage having these referendums

to really allow marijuana for recreational use i mean that is precedented what i am worried about however is seeing the same kind of federal crackdowns and blockage of these state referendums like we saw in two thousand you know oakland and california just the harsh crackdowns from the government on these kind of us clubs there so it's going to be very interesting to see when these states put this into effect how will the government react right it's a certainly a big a big step especially when there's huge implications in terms of our prisons the war on drugs that really does impact a lot of other things that it impacts the social issues the economy all these things that kind of spills into. you know in this election we are seeing the demographics have change and that has changed the political landscape it's no longer just the white establishment that you have to please if you want to get elected if they get mitt romney or who learned the hard way this last election so we don't we only have less than

a minute left but in terms of immigration we have the dream act moving forward what lies ahead for that dream act was monumental and. set aside a path for citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants of course that fell short by a couple of votes hopefully will see it pass but once again it was a symbolic gesture at the very tail end of his presidency because he's deported more illegal immigrants than every other president and we're talking about one point four illegal immigrants that's one point five times more than bush on average i mean wow for someone who says that they're going to. immigration and left there we saw him really support students when it comes to immigration when he said he wanted to give them more rights we're also seeing is him talking about ramping up border patrol the fact is that immigration the face of it is changing not necessarily people coming from latin america people coming from asia they've overtaken that kind of role so we know that immigration is going to be a topic in the next year we don't know how it's going to change and they're forced to be reckoned with as.